3-26-04

 

Save The Earth By Recycling its Treasures

 

By Carter Allen, Age 8

 

Editor, The Herald:

        I think we should try to save the earth by recycling the treasures fo the earth like aluminum, paper, water and plastic.

        If everyone tried hard to do their part we can do this. When you use aluminum foil, wash it off instead of throwing it away and use it again. We can save trees by using a towel instead of using paper towels. If we save on paper then we save the trees which gives us oxygen to breath. Cut the water off when you brush your teeth and take a shower instead of a bath. This saves water. We need to all stop polluting our world so the animals and plants can live here too.

        In April we celebrate Earth Day. I hope you all will do your part to help save the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4-07-04

 

What Are America’s Teachers Thinking About?

 

By Jerry Eicher

 

Editor, The Herald:

 

        At a time when the debate on the “No Child Left Behind” act heats up. “No Child Left Behind” is a federal program which requires all states to set minimum standards for public school students. What do we have here? What we have is a letter to the editor in our local paper from an eight-year-old child. A child who is burdened down and concerned about saving the world. Would this be about saving the souls of mankind or maybe a trip to Africa to educate the downtrodden and helpless? No, this burden is about saving our planet, our environment, and our treasures, which are being squandered by evil mankind. It is a burden about saving water, and the trees, and the animals who are dying.

        Now who would be placing such a responsibility on the shoulders of an eight-year-old child, a child young in years, fresh in his innocence, eager to please? Would it be his parents? That is possible, but I would take my chances that it is not. Where then would this instruction be coming form, this urgency about a lost and dying earth? Could it be from his education? Let’s say his private school education? Would they be teaching such things to the extent that a child would write to the local newspaper to share his burden and concern? Again, I doubt. Could this child be home-schooled? Again, I doubt.

Where then is this coming from?  Who would teach a child that the lions, and the tigers, and the bears are no more? Who would have the concern to tell an eight year old that the treasures of the earth, like water, and aluminum, and paper are almost used up? Who would tell him that the raccoons and possums can barely get to the streams any more for a little drink of water, because mom and dad have thrown out so much trash and forgotten to turn off the water while they brushed their teeth. Well, well, well, could it be our public education system? Yes, my friends it could be. This an institution entrusted with the educational care of most of the nations children. This an institution entrusted with teaching children how to read and write, how to add and subtract, and how to multiply and how to add. Yes, it really could be. I would also guess that this might be one of the reasons they no longer have the time or the passion to teach children how to do such things as read and write. That would be because they are teaching and spending their time on this absolute drivel and psychological babble about saving the world. I ask the simple question. Since when do the public schools have entrusted to them the religious education of the nations children?   

        Our Education Secretary, Rod Paige, called the NEA, that is the National Education Association, a terrorist organization. Following an outcry, he apologized for an insensitive remark, but still stuck by the essence of his remarks. “ It was an inappropriate choice of words to describe the obstructionist scare tactics the NEA’s Washington lobbyists have employed against NO Child Left Behind’s historic education reforms. I also said, as I have repeatedly, that our nations teachers who have dedicated their lives to service in the classroom are the real soldiers of democracy, whereas the NEA’s high-priced Washington lobbyists have made no secret that they will fight against bringing real, rock-solid improvements in the way we educate all our children regardless of skin color, accent, or where they live.” (Rod Paige, US Education Secretary)

       

 

        Why is our public school system opposed to the testing of each child for his or her progress? On a recent trip to Pennsylvania, I read in the local paper a story about Pennsylvania’s traumas with the “No Child Left Behind” act. Teachers were reported to be stressed out. Standards were being enforced, and there was talk of lowering them. Testing was casting it’s long shadow on the tranquil, peaceful atmosphere, of the pristine classroom. Although the newspaper did not report it, classes on saving the earth were no doubt being postponed to practice math and reading in preparation of the testing.  What a sad story. Excuse me a minute while I get the Kleenex box and turn on the violin music. Let us all have a good cry together. So teachers are stressed out. Do they think the rest of us who work have no stress? Do the teachers now under testing think the rest of us are not often tested daily on our jobs? Do they think the rest of us go through life not having to face the trials they have to face? Like actually doing our jobs. What are teachers for if they do not teach? Yes, I know the answer. Administrative jobs.

With all the money we spend on education, we ought to have an educational system far superior to our grandparents. Some school districts nationally spend over $10,000 per student. With that kind of money one wonders what private education could do for children. Much of private education spends as little as $2000 to $3000 per student. It is a sorry state indeed of public education constantly raising its cost and lowering its standards.

Mr. Hinkle reports that, “Only half of minority students earn a high-school diploma (compared with a better, but by no means adequate, 75 percent for whites). And for those minorities who do graduate, the diplomas they receive often are mere good-attendance certificates: The average black 12th grader reads at an eight grade level and scores roughly 200 point behind whites on the SAT (in Virginia the gap is 210 points; in the District of Columbia, 424 points.” (A. Barton Hinkle, Richmond Times)

Another report says, “Of 1.2 million black and Hispanic 18 year olds in the US, only about 287,000 take the classes necessary to apply to even the least selective four year colleges. Among those, roughly 69,000 cannot perform at the basic level on 12th grade reading tests.” (The Manhattan Institute’s Jay Green and Greg Foster)

The education of this country’s children should not be left in the hands of religious people who wish to save the world. That is the kind of religious people who teach young children how to wash off aluminum foil, while they have no time or ability to give all those under their care a quality education. Maybe it is time for a return of the old fashioned religious people who believed in saving the world, by saving men’s souls. The kind that was so rudely thrown out of the classroom. At least they knew not only how to add and subtract, but how to pass on those skills to the next generation. We have not gotten rid of religion in the classroom at all. All we have done is exchange the God of heaven for the god of the earth. You tell me which one is producing the best results.    

 

 

 

 

“What A Breath of Fresh Air’

 

4-16-04

 

By Tom Horton

 

Editor, The Herald:

        Jerry Eicher, what a breath of fresh air! Mr. Eicher cut through all the claptrap surrounding state education, pretentious nonsense.